Section 1 Executive Summary - Town of Yucca Valley

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1. Executive Summary measures would also mitigate impacts for each individual project site. However, to this date, no regional Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Communities Conservation Plan has been prepared for the Morongo Basin that mitigates the cumulative loss of habitat as a result of future development. Consequently, although impacts from loss of habitat would be mitigated on a case-by-case basis for each individual development through consultation with the relevant federal and state agencies, cumulative loss of habitat would be significant. • Impact 5.6-1. Buildout of the Town of Yucca Valley to the maximum level allowed by the land use designations of the General Plan Update land use plan would generate a substantial increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over existing conditions. Goals and policies are included in the General Plan Update that would reduce GHG emissions. Compliance with the goals in the San Bernardino Association of Government’s (SANBAG) proposed Regional GHG Reduction Plan (identified as Mitigation Measure 6-1) and policies and implementation measures of the General Plan Update would ensure that long-term GHG emissions from buildout of the General Plan Update are reduced to the extent feasible. However, due to the magnitude of emissions generated by the buildout of residential, office, commercial, industrial, and warehousing land uses in the Town, and the fact that no statewide long-term strategy to reduce emissions beyond year 2020 are available that would reduce impacts below MDAQMD’s thresholds at buildout of the General Plan would be significant. • Impact 5.10-1. Traffic generated by buildout of the General Plan would substantially increase traffic noise along major traffic corridors in the Town and could expose existing and planned residents to substantial noise levels. To reduce potential noise impacts to new sensitive land uses, Noise Element Policy N 1 would require noise-reducing, site design, and building construction features in residential and mixed-use projects in areas where outdoor average daily noise levels exceed of 65 dBA CNEL. However, no feasible mitigation measures are available that would prevent impacts to existing homes fronting the major transportation corridors. Though new uses can be designed for the expected noise exposure, there would be no feasible mitigation measures to reduce potential noise impacts to existing noise-sensitive uses, despite the application of mitigation measures. • Impact 5.14-2. The proposed intersection improvements required to meet the San Bernardino County Congestion Management Plan (CMP) acceptable level of service (LOS) standards may be difficult to achieve due to right-of-way acquisitions at the intersection of SR-62 and SR-247. This intersection would operate with more than 45 seconds of delay in the PM peak hour, which is inconsistent with the CMP guidance for that facility. As described in Section 7 of this DEIR, three project alternatives were identified during the scoping process and analyzed for relative impacts to the proposed project: • No Project/Existing General Plan Alternative • Clustered Development Alternative • Reduced Land Use Intensity Alternative 1.5.1 No-Project/Existing General Plan Alternative In the No Project/ Current General Plan Alternative, the General Plan Update would not be implemented by the Town. The existing 1995 General Plan, including land use designations in the Land Use Element shown in Figure 4-1, Existing Land Use Designations, would remain in effect. Overall, land use designations between the current general plan and the proposed general plan are similar. However, the proposed land use plan would allow for more intense commercial, residential, and civic uses, and higher-density residential land uses concentrated near SR-62. The proposed land use plan would generally decrease land use density to the north and to the south with distance from SR-62. The following changes were made to the land use designations in the current land use plan under the proposed project: Page 1-16 • The Planning Center|DC&E August 2013
1. Executive Summary • Large areas of the Town would be designated Hillside Residential. • Four specific plan areas are designated—three abutting SR-62 and the fourth straddling SR-247 near the northern end of the Town. • Some additional area south of SR-62 in the western part of the Town would be converted to a Medium Density Residential designation from Rural Living designation. Under the No Project/Current General Plan Alternative, these changes would not occur. Impacts of this alternative would be neutral to those of the proposed project for aesthetics, biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, hazards and hazardous materials, land use and planning, population and housing, and transportation and traffic. Impacts of this alternative would be slightly reduced compared to those of the proposed project for hydrology and water quality, noise, public services, recreation, and utilities and service systems. This alternative would reduce air quality impacts compared to those of the proposed project; however, such impacts would remain significant and unavoidable in this alternative. This alternative could reduce greenhouse gas emissions impacts; however, such impacts would also remain significant and unavoidable. This alternative would not reduce any significant and unavoidable impacts of the proposed project to less than significant. This alternative would not provide a comprehensive update to the Town’s General Plan consistent with California Government Code Sections 65300 et seq. This alternative would not revise the Town’s General Plan pursuant to various state requirements for General Plans, for instance, AB 1358, the Complete Streets Act of 2008. 1.5.2 Clustered Development Alternative The Clustered Development Alternative is proposed to reduce significant and irreversible impacts to biological resources from the cumulative loss of sensitive habitat. In this alternative, development would be concentrated in the central parts of the Town, along SR-62, to minimize or avoid development in Wildlife Corridor Evaluation Areas (WCEAs) and in Open Space Resource Areas (OSRAs), as shown on Figure 5.3-2, Biological Resources. Decreased intensity would occur within WCEAs and OSRAs; in areas that would be designated Hillside Residential, Rural Living- 10, and Rural Living-5 within WCEAs and OSRAs in the proposed General Plan. Increased intensity would occur in commercial, mixed-use, medium-high-density residential, medium-density residential, and low-density residential designations along SR-62 and SR-247. Total permitted development intensity in the Town in this alternative would be the same as the proposed project. This alternative would reduce impacts of the proposed General Plan to aesthetics, cultural resources, land use and planning, and geology and soils. Impacts of this alternative to hazards and hazardous materials, hydrology and water quality, population and housing, public services, recreation, and utilities and service systems would be neutral to those of the proposed General Plan. This alternative would reduce air quality, biological resources impacts, and GHG emissions compared to those of the proposed project; however, each of these impacts would remain significant and unavoidable in this alternative. This alternative would decrease noise impacts in the lowest density areas of the Town and increase impacts in urbanized areas of the Town; and therefore, noise impacts under this alternative would remain significant. In addition, this alternative would increase the traffic impacts by reallocating growth along the SR-62 and SR-247 corridors and exacerbating traffic conditions at affected intersections. This alternative would achieve all of the objectives of the proposed General Plan; however, at General Plan buildout, the development pattern in the Town would be slightly more urbanized and slightly more concentrated in the central parts of the Town, compared to the proposed General Plan, in which much of the Town would be built out with very low density single-family residential development (rural residential, rural living, and hillside residential designations). Yucca Valley General Plan Update Draft EIR Town of Yucca Valley • Page 1-17
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Section 1 Executive Summary - Town of Yucca Valley

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